The Celebrity Not-So-World Series of Gaming
by darcyfarrow
Summary: Pie charts, a tub of Cherry Chocolate and a TV show about poker lead to a surefire plan for raising funds for the library. Rumple just isn't sure how he ended up being the "celebrity" part of Belle's celebrity gaming tournament. A prequel to "The Dread Lord Stiltskin," by request. For #rumbelleishope.


**A/N. Because I was asked to write a story showing how Rumple got involved in online gaming.**

* * *

It all started, as it so often does for those who work in the government sector, with budget problems.

On the first of April—completely blind to the irony of holding this meeting on April Fools Day—Madame Mayor called a meeting of all the City of Storybrooke department heads. This was routine: they needed to prepare their budget proposals to present to the City Council in June, in time for the behind-closed-doors negotiations to begin and get hammered out before the public hearing and the council vote in July.

The scheduling was routine. The subject matter of the meeting was not.

As her assistant distributed colorful pages in manila folders, the department heads settled in at the big marble table in Regina's office. The mayor herself wasn't in yet: she always made an entrance at her meetings, coming in precisely on the dot. Belle imagined her hiding in the wings and watching the clock on her phone. The department chiefs made certain to arrive at every meeting ten to fifteen minutes early; anything less and they'd be hearing from Regina about it. They suspected Regina's assistant Geri of betraying them, but Belle had a hunch that from wherever she was hiding, Regina was watching them through the big oval mirror above the table.

Belle always felt awkward at these meetings. Not that anyone treated her rudely; on the contrary, most of the men made a special effort toward courtesy, hanging her coat up for her, pulling out her chair, pouring her a coffee. She suspected their over-politeness had less to do with her being the only woman in the group and more to do with whom she had married. She accepted the courtesy with the graciousness she'd learned at her father's court, though she preferred to think of herself as a citizen of the modern American world, fully capable of pouring her own coffee, thank you. It wasn't the way the other department heads treated her that made her uncomfortable; it was the way they talked, tossing the jargon of their fields around, punctuating the jargon with swear words. Rumple had explained to her it was the norm, whether the meeting was a war council or a Chamber of Commerce fundraiser; elk knocking antlers, he called it: half-play, half-challenge. She, with her gentle demeanor, advanced vocabulary, literary allusions, and sometimes obscure wit, had difficulty communicating with the other chiefs. It wasn't lost on any of them that while their recreational reading matter leaned toward _The Storybrooke Mirror_ and Clive Cussler, she carried Austen, Steinbeck, Tolstoy and Garcia Marquez in her tote. Belle was determined to rectify that. After all, these weren't just her peers; they were her customers, too. Part of her job was to provide for their reading interests and information needs.

To that end, she'd come in prepared, having read the latest Stephen King, John le Carre, and WEB Griffin, and she was ready to discuss any and all, while they waited for the mayor's entrance. She nodded her thanks as the Director of Solid Waste Management handed her a coffee, and she had just rolled out her first, rehearsed comment on _End of Watch_ when the normally taciturn Director of Transportation and Capital Improvements brought all conversation to a halt with a one word exclamation that rhymed with _duck_. Every head in the room turned.

"You looked at this sh-?" he demanded of the Parks chief, who promptly abandoned the pastry plate and sat down to open the manila folder. Not being very imaginative, he chose the same curse word to surmise his feelings of the folder's contents. All attempts at socialization screeched to a halt as Belle and other chiefs grabbed up their folders to study the colorful bar graphs and pie charts.

They were quietly seething as the mayor made her entrance. Heads snapped up, lips curled back, eyes flashed, and curses formed on tongues, but between her regal posture, unflappability, and the flecks of magic sparking off her manicured nails, she reminded them she would tolerate no crudeness. She dipped her head slightly in their general direction as she glided to head of the table. Geri jumped to withdraw the mayor's chair for her and fetch her a coffee. "Gentlemen, good afternoon," Regina said smoothly, then remembered to acknowledge Belle, "and lady. We have much to discuss today."

"We sure the hell do," Solid Waste murmured to Belle, seated at his left.

Belle, a polished speed reader, had taken in the entire contents of the folder in the time it had taken Regina to seat herself. "Yeah, we sure the hell do," she muttered back.

* * *

Bent over the open oven door, Rumple jerked up as the front door to his home banged open. The roasting pan in his hands sloshed in response to his reaction to the door slam and juice from his Yankee pot roast splashed up, streaking his apron. Heels struck the wood flooring with bullet-like explosions, and from that sound he identified the new arrival. "Welcome home, sweetheart. Pissed off, are we? " Then he remembered today's date. "Of course we are." As the president of the Chamber of Commerce—and, more relevantly, as owner of 82.4% of the property within the town limits—he had a pretty good idea of what had happened in the budget meeting.

Hastily, he slid the roast back into the oven and conjured a pint of Cherry Chocolate Crunch and a spoon—a wooden mixing spoon. He brought these, along with a box of Kleenex, on a silver salver into the living room, carefully sidestepping the tote bag, high heels, suit jacket, pencil skirt and slip that blazed a trail from the foyer. He found his wife in her chenille bathrobe and fuzzy slippers face down on the couch. After setting the salver on the coffee table, he gingerly sat down in the small space she'd left him. "That bad, huh?" He stroked her back.

He could hear only a few words of her muffled answer, but what he did hear made him yelp, "Belle!"

She flopped onto her back. Her expression swung back and forth from anger to insult, with a hint of fear under-riding the two. "Sorry, darling, I'm picking up some of the more colorful language the other chiefs use." She threw an arm over her eyes. "But right now, those are the words that best express my thoughts."

"Ah." He brushed her hair back from her face.

"You knew, didn't you?" Her tone was not accusing, so he dared nod in answer. "Nothing happens in this town that you don't know about."

"Well, we knew it was headed in that direction. Whatever affects the city coffers affects small-business owners first. Profits have been down for months, expenses up. When you consider the sheer number of times the city has had to repair roads, streetlights, public buildings, even the parks, in the last three years—all that damage, from giants overturning cars, to wraiths ripping up asphalt roads. . . " he blushed a little, recognizing his responsibility in the latter incident.

"Ice walls, time portals, green cyclones," Belle reflected.

"Just the price of the pooper scoopers needed after King Arthur and his buddies rode their horses down Main Street," he reminded her. "It all adds up."

"Fifty percent," she moaned. "She's cutting my budget fifty percent. All the other departments are taking a twenty percent cut. It's not fair."

He didn't argue, though he knew what the other shop owners would have said: the city needs fire and police protection and road repairs more than it needs books. He knew the citizens of Storybrooke had had this debate with her before; she'd been fighting their shortsightedness for years. A man of long vision and scheming, Rumple would have taken her side in this even if he weren't in love with her. Every day, he saw the benefits of having a free library, from the kindergardeners who needed their Dr. Seuss fix to the high schoolers who depended upon _The College Blue Book_ to find scholarships for higher education; from Granny, who photocopied pages from the cookbook section, to Dan Marine and his two employees who thumbed through _Chilton's_ for schematics for Emma's '72 Super Beetle, Charming's '73 F-150 and Regina's R107 Mercedes; from Miss Ginger, who oooh'ed and aaah'ed over _Cat Fancy_ to Dr. Hopper, who relied on the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection database to treat his patients. Every day, in countless ways, for their education, their jobs, their health, their childrearing and gardening and small-appliance repairs, for their amusement and enlightenment, to the salvation of their very souls, the citizens depended upon their library and their librarian. They needed these books, though they weren't even aware of it, and because access to the books and computers and media and Belle's brain was offered to everyone, free of charge, they seemed to forget that it all cost money, and they got cranky when the bill came due.

Rumple tried a sheepish offering. "I brought ice cream."

She started to shake her head—ice cream wouldn't solve even the smallest of her problems—but she found herself sitting up and seizing the tub. "Good, you brought the big spoon," she said around a mouthful.

"I could, maybe, help?" He set a toe onto the thin ice. They'd talked about this before. He had more money than they could spend in his lifetime, which, for an immortal, was going some.

"No."

"What if I talked to the other business—"

"No. Rumple, even if you don't actually threaten them, just by opening your mouth, they think they hear a threat. So, thanks but no. They have to see the _importance_ of the library."

"Suppose I organize a fundraising drive—"

"Same difference. They'll give because they're afraid of you. You'll have to strong-arm them year after year, if we start down that path."

"But it'll save the library for this year."

"No. "

"Belle, don't let your pride stand in the way of saving the library. It's a necessity to the future of this community."

She sighed around her wooden spoon. "But fundraisers don't work here. Remember last year's Miner's Day? And the year before? And the year before? And that was for nuns. If they won't give for nuns, they won't give for books."

"Kids. They give for their kids," he blurted. "The Baby Emporium, Toyz for Kidz, even Marilyn Hotchkiss' Charm School for Displaced Little Lords and Ladies, they made profits last year."

Belle thrust her spoon back into the tub. "Which store made the biggest profit?"

"Computers, Computers, Computers."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I get a full house every time I offer a computer class. But I can't bring myself to charge for that. There's just too much information online; if I charged people to learn how to access it, I'd be denying access to the poor people."

"Half of Johnny MacApple's sales last year came from electronic games."

Belle's eyes glazed over as she devoted her attention to her imagination. (Her hands, however, were still free to spoon up ice cream.) "Games. . . ."

"But kids don't really need lessons in playing the games. They seem to have been born knowing."

"Yeah. . . .But. . . you remember last night when we were watching _The World Series of Poker_?"

"I remember. Millions of dollars changing hands on the turn of a few cards."

"The players had to pay an entrance fee."

"Yeah. . . ." Rumple suddenly lit up. "A hefty fee, as I recall. Not that we would charge more than a few dollars for kids—"

"Of course not. Five dollars, maybe. Let's see, there are two hundred kids between the ages of ten and eighteen in Storybrooke. If half of them play electronic games—ten dollars," she corrected herself. "We charge ten dollars admission." She scowled. "It's not enough."

"We charge five dollars to play, but ten dollars to watch," Rumple grinned evilly. "No parent in Storybrooke will dare to miss out on cheering their kids on. At twenty-five bucks per entrant, that's a lot closer to making up your deficit. More importantly, the build-up toward the tournament will generate a tremendous amount of free publicity. Add in all those people coming into the library to borrow game books and practice—"

"It'll be harder for the council to cut my budget in July if library attendance increases dramatically before then." She scraped the bottom of the carton for the last taste of cherry chocolate: with a sly smile, he conjured her a refill. "If it doesn't work, we'll go down fighting."

"You know what's even bigger than _The_ _World Series of Poker_?" he mused.

She guessed, " _The Universal Series of Poker?"_

" _The Celebrity World Series of Poker_."

"Oh. . . as in the Evil Queen versus Snow White in Words with Friends?"

"Precisely. Or the Queen's Villains of Vileness versus Snow's Knights of Niceness in World of Warcraft, so we can get some _real_ action?"

Belle was practically salivating. "Oh yeah! People would pay big bucks to see that. We'd have to use the high school gym to fit all the spectators in. And paraphernalia—we could start selling buttons and t-shirts and banners a week before. It'll be a _thing_. Support your side, Heroes or Villains; anyone who isn't wearing a shirt or button would be considered a traitor to both sides."

"You're picking up the principles of marketing remarkably fast, Belle." He kissed her sticky mouth.

She held up a warning finger. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. . . .I've got it! The last match of the night will be the biggest. Huge! A one-on-one smackdown in a game chosen by the challenger. We auction off the challenger's seat. Whoever pays the most, gets the seat. It could be Regina, it could be Emma, it could be Hook—and in the champion's seat—" she flashed him a mischievous grin.

" _Me_?" He gulped. "But, Belle, I don't know how to play any online games. I don't even play Solitaire because I hate to lose."

"Such is the benefit of being a grandfather. Through Henry, you have access to a schoolful of kids who can teach you every game on the market."

"But _Belle_ ," he whimpered.

"You love the library, don't you?"

"Yes. . . ."

"You want this town to prosper, don't you?"

"Yes. . . ."

"You learned mental magic, elemental magic, and arcane magic, didn't you? Surely a few games won't be hard. Not to the most powerful sorcerer of all time."

"But, _Belle_. . . ."

* * *

Belle took bids for the challenger's seat right up until 10 minutes before the first event. Even at ten bucks per ticket, every seat in the gym was filled and every spectator wore a t-shirt or button or both to signal his/her team loyalty; even at twenty-five bucks per player, every game was at maximum capacity. In the coach's office, Dove guarded the till and the envelope that contained the answer to the great question of the night: who had bought the right to smack down the Dark One in a game chosen from a list of twenty?

The fundraising had gone dizzyingly well, so well that Regina insisted they could do it again next year, enabling the library budget cuts to be permanent. Betrayed by her own success, Belle didn't know whether to throw a party or throw a fit. The twenty thousand dollars in Dove's iron lockbox made it hard for her to work up much steam.

Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, team after team played, from Roland's Raiders, who won Catch the Dragon's Tail, to Grace's White Rabbits, who won Yes It's Rocket Science. Henry's Heroes lost, but Henry freely admitted he was more a book kind of guy anyway. The No-Longer-Evil Regals ruled over Snow's Sweethearts, and the Jolly Rogers hit the deck when the Charm Attack drew their swords.

At ten p.m., the match all of Storybrooke had anticipated was called. Sitting at a folding table on the stage, with an overhead LCD display blaring his name, as if the spectators didn't know, sat Rumplestiltskin, quiet and seemingly slightly bored in his Armani suit. He had brought his own laptop from home to give him a little extra comfort, and it was hooked up to a projector so that his moves could be broadcast and recorded. As Belle clacked across the stage to a microphone hanging from the ceiling, he stood, bowed to her and folded his hands serenely, awaiting her announcement.

"In the final match of the night, it's Rumplestiltskin versus the Challenger. In just a moment I'll announce the game and the player, but before I do, I'd like to thank everyone for all your support in this project. We've raised over twenty thousand dollars! " She waited for the cheers to die down. "And now, on to the final match. The game, as chosen by the Challenger, will be—" she clicked a button on a remote control, and a smiling yellow circle with curly-lashed blue eyes and a red hair-bow appeared on the screen. "Ms. Packman!"

One of the cameras caught Rumple's reaction as he mouthed a phrase that seemed to be questioning the existence of fudge. He'd known Ms. Packman was a possibility, but when it had appeared on the list of twenty possible games, he'd assumed it was a joke. He and his army of teenage trainers had prepared him for Race for the Galaxy, Hearthstone, Resident Evil , Chivalry, Grand Theft Auto and even Scrabble. Ms. Pacman, he'd glanced at and laughed at.

Though his hands were serenely folded, his fingers twitched. He wondered if the camera would catch it if he summoned a little magic during the play.

"And the winner of the Challenger Seat auction, with a bid of a thousand dollars, raised, I'm told, dollar by dollar from contributions all throughout the city—" a trumpet blared. "Mother Superior, the Blue Fairy!"

Cheers and stomping feet consumed all the sound in the room. The gym doors flew open and the entire convent, in their frilly fairy gowns and steely-eyed frowns, flocked in. They'd "gone big" for the occasion, and they carried banners proclaiming Blue's impending victory and signs that promised to tear the scales off the Dark One. In their center, dressed in a silver silk boxing robe and thrusting her fists into the air, walked Blue herself.

Rumple's eyes wandered from the spectacle to the librarian standing at his right. Belle tried to smile encouragingly; Rumple's eyes narrowed. "For the library," she reminded him.

Rumple sighed heavily and sat down, cracking his knuckles, as Blue and her entourage mounted the stage and Belle shouted into the microphone, "Let the game begin!"

* * *

They waited in the coach's office until well after 1 a.m., when they could no longer hear any cheers, honking horns or raucous laughter from the streets. They'd counted the money and sketched out plans for finishing the library basement as they waited. Ever-loyal, Dove waited with them and walked them to their car. "Call if you need anything," he advised as he said goodnight.

Rumple drove slowly, leaning out the driver's side window so he could see, his windshield covered in "Loser Gold" in shaving cream.

"Gobbled in the first round," he muttered.

"Are you angry?" Belle fretted.

"Guess I'd rather be 'Loser Gold' than 'Ms. Packman Champion of Storybrooke.'" They chuckled. "Besides, you won't be at Regina's budgetary mercy this year. Freedom is priceless, even to me."

"Thank you, darling." She rested her head against his shoulder. "You're a champion to me."

They rode in silence, but as he pulled the Caddy into their driveway, he remarked on something he'd been contemplating. "You know, I could wipe that smirk off her face in a minute, with any other game."

"Of course you could."

As they mounted the stairs to the porch, he remarked, "You know, I've been in a cold and sometimes hot war with her for two centuries."

"I've heard the stories."

As he unlocked the door and turned on the foyer lights, he remarked, "You know, my wars with her caused a lot damage in the Enchanted Forest, and a lot of grudges here that were bad for my business."

"I see."

As they wandered into the kitchen and put a kettle on, he remarked, "You know, I can't let this victory of hers stand."

"It's a matter of honor." She brought down two cups from the cupboard.

He reached into his pocket for his phone. "You have the number for the convent?"

She smiled knowingly.


End file.
